Why Meaning Matters

When I attended the Cedar Rapids Schools equity meeting in January 2016, the buzz words from the district were personalization and innovation. I was quoted on the news as saying personalized learning is a key component of equity. However, I struggle with words being thrown around without fully understanding the definition of them.

Natalie Abel shares in her blog post for iNACOL that we need to have common definitions so that we have a shared understanding of what words like personalized learning and innovation mean.

If the same words mean different things to different people, confusion and frustration can arise, and this creates a serious problem for schools and leaders. If we don’t use common definitions, communication breaks down and it becomes harder to learn from one another.

Personalized learning is so much more than handing a device to a student and saying here complete this activity online and then we'll prescribe your learning. Personalized learning means that schools teach to each student's needs and offer direct instruction, along with technology that enhances student learning and can identify where there are achievement gaps.

In Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education, iNACOL zeroes in on these terms and describes them in great detail. The definitions according to iNACOL's current description are:

Personalized Learning:

Tailoring learning for each student’s strengths, needs and interests–including enabling student voice and choice in what, how, when and where they learn–to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.

Blended Learning:

Any time a student learns, at least in part, at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace. The modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience” (Horn & Staker, 2013).

Competency Education:

In 2011, iNACOL and CompetencyWorks led a summit bringing together 100 innovators in competency education for the first time. At that meeting, participants fine-tuned a working definition of high-quality competency education:

• Students advance upon demonstrated mastery;
• Competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students;
• Assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students;
• Students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs; and
• Learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge, along with the development of important skills and dispositions.

As I have described personalized learning to my parents and older friends, they laugh and say, "I see this more like a one-room schoolhouse." I usually laugh along with them, because that's what I thought would make the most sense when tailoring to the needs of each student. Perhaps, though, we don't look at it like a one-room school house, but more like a school without walls defining where a student should be according to his/her chronological age.

As a parent, I made a choice, despite my child being chronologically able to start kindergarten this year, that she would attend the alternative kindergarten program and take another year to mature before starting full-day kindergarten. This has cost me more than an extra $6000 in childcare (about 14% of my salary), but for her to be successful in a traditional school setting, she needed one more year to grow. Alternative Kindergarten in our district focuses a lot on social emotional behaviors, but they also assess math and literacy skills. My daughter is doing amazing and her teacher tells me to keep doing what I am doing at home.

So when we look at traditional schools and classrooms, we group students based on their age and have them progress through each grade level without a lot of concern for how much of the content they know and they automatically advance with their peers. However, personalized learning allows for students to master content before advancing and for teachers to identify where the gaps in their learning may be. It also allows for continuous flexible grouping of students so that they can be taught in their zone of proximal development.